You are here

Staff Notes Daily Announcements

The CISL User Services Section will hold a 60- to 75-minute seminar and discussion for Yellowstone users at 10 a.m. Friday, August 7, in the Small Seminar Room at the Foothills Lab in Boulder (FL2-1001). The session will also be webcast via UCARConnect.

Three brief presentations are planned:

Accessing RDA collections from Yellowstone: Grace Peng (CISL/DSS)—A large subset of NCAR/CISL Research Data Archive (RDA) dataset collections can be accessed directly from the GLADE file spaces on Yellowstone. This presentation will provide an overview of the RDA resources and tools, including metadata access and subsetting services, that are available to Yellowstone users.

Simple “command file” syntax for task parallelism: Dick Valent (CISL/USS/CSG)—By using command file syntax to exploit characteristics of your workflow, you may be able to achieve task parallelism to make more efficient use of your Yellowstone allocation and reduce time to solution. Command file syntax can be used in forms from simple to complex. Dick will present the simplest form of command file.

Real-time, ensemble forecasting using CISL resources: Ryan Sobash (MMM)—A daily, real-time, ensemble forecasting system has been running at NCAR since late March using Yellowstone and other CISL resources. Ryan will talk about some unique computing challenges this type of system poses, solutions developed to maintain reliability and timeliness, and the development of an ensemble visualization system and website (http://ensemble.ucar.edu) to view the forecasts.

All Yellowstone users are welcome. If you plan to attend in person, please sign up here to give us an idea of how many participants to expect.

The Office of General Counsel (OGC) is excited to announce the relaunch of our Website with new features. We invite you to visit our site today. If you missed our recent IP webinar or just want to review the presentation and slides, they are available here: Copyright, Trademark or Patent?

For more information, contact Christy Locke at ext. 8874, locke@ucar.edu

It’s time to nominate your colleagues for the 2015 UCAR Distinguished Achievement and Outstanding Accomplishment Awards. Michael Thompson's memo requesting nominations for this year's awards can be found on the Employee Recognition Awards Policy website. In order for your submission to be favorably considered, please use the appropriate Criteria Checklist (there are two): for either the Distinguished Achievement Award and/or for one of the Outstanding Accomplishments Awards.

Submit your nominations electronically to Susan Montgomery-Hodge, either on a flash drive or to the UCAR at CIT (U) drive. Although any employee may initiate a nomination, only Directors or their designates can submit nominations.

The annual Up The Hill Race and all-staff party will be Friday, August 7 at the Mesa Lab. If you want to participate in the running or the bike race, please sign up at https://www2.fin.ucar.edu/eac. The schedule is as follows, and the shuttle schedule will not change for the day:

2:55 Mesa Lab road closes

3:00 Bike Race and Bar Opens

Road will open between the bike and the foot races (approximately 3:15)

3:25 Mesa Lab road closes

3:30 Foot Race

Road will re-open after the last racer (approximately 4:00)

After the race, we will have the last summer all-staff party on the tree terrace at the Mesa Lab. Join us for cold beverages, appetizers, live music by the Craig Maierhofer Trio, and social time with your colleagues. Families are welcome to attend.

These new acquisitions will be displayed at each NCAR Library location for one week, first at FL Library and then at ML Library. If you have questions regarding the items or want to suggest additions to the library collection, please contact the NCAR Library at ncarref@ucar.edu or ext. 8505.

Traveling abroad? Need to brush up on a foreign language for international collaboration?

Transparent Language Online is an online language learning application available to the UCAR/NCAR/UCP community through the NCAR Library. This product offers free remote access anytime from anywhere for over 80 languages. It provides personal progress tracking as well as audio pronunciation analysis and cultural resources.

Access is available through the Transparent Language NCAR Library login page. Your initial visit will require a one-time set-up process for your account. Once you have established your account a mobile application is available.

Per the previous Heads Up announcement, Contracts issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit a vendor for the next office supply Non-Encumbered Blanket Purchase Order (NBPO). This process is now complete. Faison Office Products was the successful vendor in this RFP. Thanks to all those who participated in the evaluation process!

If your lab/program wants to purchase office supplies through this NBPO, please submit a Purchase Requisition (PR) to Contracts at contract@ucar.edu. The account key series for the lab/program should be used on the PR with the exception of account keys in 30xxxx, 31xxxx, or 32xxxx. Also, the person(s) authorizing the PR must have at least $5,000 in signature authority for the account key series included on the PR. Please utilize the NBPO Purchase Requisition form found on the Contracts webpage under Contract Forms.

Please submit the PRs for this NBPO to Contracts no later than Friday July 17, 2015.